"Who and what was he supposed at Paris to
be?"

"Conjectures were numberless. One of your
countrymen suggested that which was most
generally favoured. This gentleman, whose
name I forget, but who was one of those old
roues who fancy themselves young because they
live with the young, no sooner set eyes upon
Margrave, than he exclaimed, 'Louis Grayle
come to life again, as I saw him forty-four
years ago! But no— still younger, still handsomer
— it must be his son!'"

"Louis Grayle, who was said to be murdered
at Aleppo?"

"The same. That strange old man was
enormously rich, but it seems that he hated his
lawful heirs, and left behind him a fortune so
far below that which he was known to possess,
that he must certainly have disposed of it
secretly before his death. Why so dispose of
it, if not to enrich some natural son, whom, for
private reasons, he might not have wished to
acknowledge, or point out to the world by the
signal bequest of his will? All that Margrave
ever said of himself and the source of his
wealth confirmed this belief. He frankly
proclaimed himself a natural son, enriched by a
father whose name he knew not nor cared to
know."

"It is true. And Margrave quitted Paris for
the East? When?"

"I can tell you the date within a day or two,
for his flight preceded mine by a week; and,
happily, all Paris was so busy in talking of it,
that I slipped away without notice."

And the Prussian then named a date which
it thrilled me to hear, for it was in that
very month, and about that very day, that
the Luminous Shadow had stood within my
threshold.

The young Count now struck off into other
subjects of talk: nothing more was said of
Margrave. An hour or two afterwards, he went
on his way, and I remained long gazing
musingly on the embers of the fire dying low on my
hearth.

LADIES' LIVES.

IN a former article* attention was directed
to the existence of certain chemical agencies by
which linen and other fabrics, naturally of a
combustible nature, could be rendered
uninflammable. The recurrence of accidents to
women by the igniting of their dresses has been
so frequent lately as to excuse our returning
briefly to this subject, with a view of making
our readers aware that there actually exists a
preparation, sold by all our principal chemists,
or obtainable through them, whose express and
sole use is the rendering combustible materials
non-inflammable.

* See The Good Servant: the Bad Master, in
No. 140.

The label here copied was in existence long
before our article was printed, and the drug
which it describes has for some time had a
regular sale:

               TUNGSTATE OF SODA,
      FOR RENDERING MUSLIN, &c., NON-
                       INFLAMMABLE
                 DIRECTIONS FOR USE.
Dissolve four ounces of Tungstate of Soda in an
imperial pint of water; immerse the fabric, then
squeeze as dry as possible. After which dry in a
   warm room
The fabric to be first washed and starched in the
   usual manner.

In our former article on the important subject
to which we now return, it was our principle
object to show how necessary it is to adopt
every possible precaution against accidents by
fires, and also to call attention to certain chemical
preparations said to be of a non-inflammable
nature. We now propose to turn to the
more practical part of our subject.

The muslin dress has been the subject of
much thought and labour of learned and scientific
heads. Studious men have gone away into
laboratories, and passed hours in meditations and
experiments solely having to do with its
combustible folds. Men on whom all the fascinations
of tulle are thrown away, and who hardly
know a high dress from a low one, are compelled
to become themselves ministers of fashion, and
to plunge into the depths of these airy nothings,
overwhelmed like everybody else by crinoline
and furbelow. It is curious to think how many
business-like and sober personages are habitually
occupied all through their lives with affairs of
the most extraordinarily trivial and unbusiness-like
kind. You pass some grave old accountant
trudging home in the afternoon to his well, but
grimly, ordered home at Hackney. Everything
there is strict and precise. There is nothing fanciful
nor frivolous in that establishment. The wife
is as straight in her apparel as a Noah's ark figure,
and the children look as if butter would not
melt in their mouths. You track that grim
old man to his place of occupation and find that
he is head clerk in an artificial flower business.
The little scraps of coloured muslin bring in all
the money which it is his work to keep account
of, and all his " as per invoices" and " yours
received and contents noted," and all other formal
and unimaginative records, bear reference to
artificial daisies and violets that grow on wire.
So you see mighty bales and packing-cases swinging
from cranes before great city warehouses, and
surly and depressed men superintending their
removal. Pooh! you need not respect them,
they are full of crinoline steel going to the
colonies, or perhaps of Christmas masks with red
pasteboard noses fresh arrived from Germany.
So in the case with which we have now to do,
the learned doctors shut themselves up in their
studies with no books before them but book-muslin
and literary characters of portentous